toblix

Kinect

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So this is being released around this time, and I keep wondering if it'll even work in my living room, and – even if it will – would I want one? What is the system seller? Also, since the camera is so dependent on stuff like lighting, furniture, colors, etc., will they have a special "Didn't work for me" return policy? Surely there's bound to be lots of people who will buy it, only to find out their living room is too small/large/dark/bright/dirty.

edit: Apparently it requires you to stand at least 6 feet from the camera, which means I'll have to learn how to intersect with my coffee table.

Edited by toblix

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On the upswing, if you actually do learn to make your atoms flow around the atoms of other "solids" there are actually a few non-gaming applications for that too. Secondary concern, obviously, but worth thinking about.

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There are no system sellers for it yet. Think we are going to have to wait for Child of Eden, Panzer dragoon and Steel Battalion 2.

Dance Central looks like a fun, drunk-at-a-party-yes-I-know-I-can't-dance sort of thing adn the only other game even remotely interesting is Sonic Free Riders.

180cm is the optimal distance but I've seen stuff working from closer range and be playable while sitting.

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I genuinely can't find any appeal in the Kinect at all, mostly because the vast majority of games I play simply could not work without buttons. I mean, who wants to be leaping all over their living room while playing something like Castlevania or Fable 3? I can barely imagine how you'd even do something as basic as control your own movement and direction in a Kinect game.

I think I'll be foregoing it and grabbing a Move instead as I truly believe the kind of approach the Wii took will become the industry standard and what gamers appreciate most. It's the perfect balance because you've still got your vital buttons and sticks — which aren't going to go away until the fuckers can read our thoughts — but there's also a layer of motion control and a mouse-accurate pointer which makes shooters more fun, real-time strategy on a console feasible, etc. Also in theory the Move could be updated to do similar things to Kinect due to Kinect pretty much just being software (the 360 does all the actual processing) and a camera, albeit one with infared.

Nintendo got it right this generation (just like they have in the past with d-pads, analogue sticks, trigger buttons, etc), and Sony's realised that and basically just copied and improved what they did. Microsoft has obviously tried to differentiate itself and has too much pride to just do the sensible thing and copy Nintendo, but I'm putting my money on Kinect flopping — or at most performing like the original EyeToy. :fart:

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I was similary unimpressed with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but it shows I know nothing and the Kinect/Move and Wii Remote were not aimed at me.

I am going to reserve my judgement until I see one of the games I mentioned above in motion, for real.

Of the established genres the only one I imagine being good with Kinect is RTSs.

That said, isn't anyone else disappointed that in other Art forms, the introduction of a new technique has led to new breakthroughs in expression and genre. Yet, in the games industry it has resulted in the same genres but with waggle controls?

No one seems to be thinking of a way to make a new type of game, only how to bend the rules of an established genre to fit the new input.

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I'm sure I've said this before, but they should make stuff like Kinect and PSeye standard input devices that come with the console. Body/headtracking and voice recognition would be a nice addition of tools for game designers to make use of. Not required, but there if you want/need it.

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Well, if it wasn't clear before who Kinect was aimed at, the intro video to the dashboard update certainly made it obvious. It was like the WiiMotion Plus all over again.

"Pay attention to the bottom of the screen to see which buttons you can press."

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I played Dance Central and Deca Sports at PAX. Dance Central was a lot of fun and made me want a Kinect. Deca Sports was absolutely abysmal and made me hate myself, gaming, Microsoft, and anyone within about 50 meters of me. Let's call that an overall "wait and see" on Kinect.

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Watched the whole Kinect launch thing on Giant Bomb. They're breaking it out into quick looks although you'll miss some of the calibration errors a lot of games were having. There was a lot of re-signing in to choose your profile, although once a game had you, it seemed like you could swap out and it would recognize you.

The whole thing struck me as slow, especially on the MS end. All their interface stuff is performed by holding your hand over a cursor and waiting for a timer to finish. This coupled with every game having a tutorial that is one step at a time of the most mundane actions with no way to skip to the next step means you'll either spend a long time watching them or skip them by accident and fail. There was one particularly annoying tutorial system (Kinect Sports) that had three spots, one for each step, but instead of showing all of them and just lighting up the current one being described, it would make them appear one by one. Perhaps as a better idea you could just put your hand over each step to activate descriptions and animations, until you were ready for the next one. It seems like they erred on the side of people not being confused, not on the side of not wasting their time.

Third party stuff was much snappier on interface. Harmonix used the vertical height of your right hand to choose menu options and a swipe to the left to confirm, and swipes to the right to go back. This meant you could quickly go through options once you got the hang of it, and it was really easy to do. Sonic Riders used an interface where you rotate a wheel of options and when you wanted to confirm, you'd drag the icon over a confirmation button. Once again this meant that you were going trough quickly. Finally Adrenalin Misfits (that's not a typo) had you make stances to go forward. This was the best use. Hand out to the left to go left in a menu, to the right to go right, hand up in the air like you're asking a question in elementary to confirm. It's weird that this was the only real pose based menu control, since the basic 'Guide Button' action is to stand with one arm at your side and the other down at a 45 degree angle. I thought that stuff would be much more prevalent. The hand cursor stuff in general seemed kinda unpredictable, with weird moments when it would bug out.

The voice stuff seemed like the most powerful part, and the quickest. To activate Kinect you have to wave your hand until it picks it up as a cursor, but to use voice commands you just say 'XBox' and then whatever you want to do.

The weirdest thing I saw was probably Kinectimals (Quick Look), because it thought it would be a sort of free roam game where you just play with your cat, but instead it was weirdly reminiscent of the Idle Thumb proposed shitty version of Noby Noby Boy. It's constantly coming up with objectives and new items to use, and a lot of them boil down to throw this ball equivalent at things in the environment to knock them down. A lot of it was necessary though, because you need those points to unlock new areas, although the areas just seemed to be more mini games, but with score ranks. That doesn't strike me as having anything to do with training an animal. The game just seemed more like a Kinect mini game collection, where sometimes you have a cat. Even the training stuff was super simple mimicry. I think it would be cooler to train an animal to jump by holding a treat out of reach vertically, than by just jumping up and watching him copy you. I did like that the cat constantly brings you stuff to play with, since a lot of it is locked in a store.

Sorry for the long post.

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Alright, so I have a Kinect, and Dance Central.

The short answer is, wait. I really like Dance Central, and the Giantbomb's demo of Your Shape fitness intrigued me, but there isn't enough there to warrant a purchase yet.

I don't have a large living room, it's maybe 8 feet wide, but it is fairly long, so I can shuffle my furniture around until things work, and I haven't had any issues with voice commands or movement yet.

Kinect ID is really hit or miss though. Sometimes it will see me right off, but other times, under the exact same conditions, it refuses to acknowledge me.

Weirdly enough ESPN works for me, even though I don't have cable, it shouldn't be able to do that. I'm not much of a sports guy though, so it does nothing for me.

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I feel that after seeing this, I have gained all the entertainment Kinect has to offer.

Finally a Kinect thing that makes sense to me! :tup:

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To me Kinect seems like it brings to your living room those stupid TV games from a few years ago where people send SMS-s to hit the host with a football or something.

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Well, a friend of mine with Kinect recently posted this on his Facebook status...

"i just want to thank the guy who played table tennis online with me just now. that was hilarious. who knew you could hide behind the table? who knew you could serve with a foot on the table? we didn't, but we taught each other a thing or two, and had a few competitive games."

Make me feel that hijinks can be had :tup:

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To me Kinect seems like it brings to your living room those stupid TV games from a few years ago where people send SMS-s to hit the host with a football or something.

I think we still have that crap as a filler in the Finnish MTV3 and Nelonen channels during times when no actual programs are on the air.

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I like how the Kinect was released, then it turned my Xbox 360 dashboard into an advertisement for Kinect.

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Alright, so I have a Kinect, and Dance Central.

The short answer is, wait. I really like Dance Central, and the Giantbomb's demo of Your Shape fitness intrigued me, but there isn't enough there to warrant a purchase yet.

I don't have a large living room, it's maybe 8 feet wide, but it is fairly long, so I can shuffle my furniture around until things work, and I haven't had any issues with voice commands or movement yet.

Kinect ID is really hit or miss though. Sometimes it will see me right off, but other times, under the exact same conditions, it refuses to acknowledge me.

Weirdly enough ESPN works for me, even though I don't have cable, it shouldn't be able to do that. I'm not much of a sports guy though, so it does nothing for me.

You don't need cable for the ESPN stuff, just an ISP that supports ESPN3.com. I'm mostly interested in how the Kinect would work for videoconferencing. That's not really enough to get me to buy one yet though,

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I think we still have that crap as a filler in the Finnish MTV3 and Nelonen channels during times when no actual programs are on the air.

Yeah, I think that's where I saw them in the first place. But now we no longer get Finnish TV :):( (except for YLE1/2)

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I'll say something for Kinect... I just finished "playing" some of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and I'm more tired than when I finish a session at the gym! Then again... I don't usually go to the gym at midnight.

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